Out Of The Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis Read Free Book Online

soap!' grinned Devine. 'Pure soap to the last bubble, eh?'
    Shortly after this the even tenor of their life in the spaceship began to be disturbed. Weston
explained that they would soon begin to feel the gravitational pull of Malacandra.
    'That means,' he said, 'that it will no longer be down to the centre of the ship. It will
be "down" towards Malacandra - which from our point of view will be under.
the control room. As a consequence, the floors of most of the chambers will become wall or
roof, and one of the walls a floor. You won't like it.'
    The result of this announcement, so far as Ransom was concerned, was hours of heavy labour in which
he worked shoulder to shoulder now with Devine and now with Weston as their alternating watches
liberated them from the control room. Water tins, oxygen cylinders, guns, ammunition and foodstuffs
had all to be piled on the floors alongside the appropriate walls and lying on their sides so as to
be upright when the new 'downwards' came into play. Long before the work was finished disturbing
sensations began. At first Ransom supposed that it was the toil itself which so weighted his limbs:
but rest did not alleviate the symptom, and it was explained to him that their bodies, in response
to the planet that had caught them in its field, were actually gaining weight every minute and
doubling in weight with every twenty-four hours. They had the experiences of a pregnant woman, but
magnified almost beyond endurance.
    At the same time their sense of direction - never very confident on the space-ship - became
continuously confused. From any room on board, the next room's floor had always looked downhill
and felt level: now it looked downhill and felt a little, a very little, downhill as well. One
found oneself runnng as one entered it. A cushion flung aside on the floor of the saloon would be
found hours later to have moved an inch or so towards the wall. All of them were afflicted with
vomiting, headache and palpitations of the heart. The conditions grew worse hour by hour. Soon
one could only grope and crawl from cabin to cabin. All sense of direction disappeared in a
sickening confusion. Parts of the ship were definitely below in the sense that their floors
were upside down and only a fly could walk on them: but no part seemed to Ransom to be indisputably
the right way up. Sensations of intolerable height and of falling utterly absent in the heavens -
recurred constantly. Cooking, of course, had long since been abandoned. Food was snatched as best
they could, and diinking presented great difficulties: you could never be sure that you were
really holding your mouth below, rather than beside, the bottle. Weston grew grimmer and more
silent than ever. Devine, a flask of spirits ever in his hand, flung out strange blasphemies and
coprologies and cursed Weston for bringing them. Ransom ached, licked his dry lips, nursed his
bruised limbs and prayed for the end.
    A time came when one side of the sphere was unmistakably down. Clamped beds and tables hung useless
and ridiculous on what was now wall or roof. What had been doors became trap-doors, opened with
difficulty. Their bodies seemed made of lead. There was no more work to be done when Devine had
set out the clothes - their Malacandrian clothes - from their bundles and squatted down on the end
wall of the saloon (now its floor) to watch the thermometer. The clothes, Ransom noticed, included
heavy woollen underwear, sheepskin jerkins, fur gloves and eared caps. Devine made no reply to
his questions. He was engaged in studying the thermometer and in shouting down to Weston in the
control room.
    'Slower, slower,' he kept shouting. 'Slower, you damned fool. You'll be in air in a minute or two.'
Then sharply and angrily. 'Here! Let me get at it.'
    Weston made no replies. It was unlike Devine to waste his advice: Ransom concluded that the man
was almost out of his senses, whether with fear or excitement.
    Suddenly the